9Solomon finished building the Lord’s temple and the royal palace. He had accomplished everything he had planned to do. ²The Lord appeared to him a second time. He had already appeared to him at Gibeon. ³The Lord said to him,

“I have heard you pray to me. I have heard you ask me to show you my favor. You have built this temple. I have set it apart for myself. My Name will be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.

⁴“But you must walk with me, just as your father David did. Your heart must be honest. It must be without blame. Do everything I command you to do. Obey my rules and laws. ⁵Then I will set up your royal throne over Israel forever. I promised your father David I would do that. I said to him, ‘You will always have a man on the throne of Israel.’

⁶“But suppose all of you turn away from me. Or your sons turn away from me. You refuse to obey the commands and rules I have given you. And you go off to serve other gods and worship them. ⁷Then I will cut Israel off from the land. It is the land I gave them. I will turn my back on this temple. I will do it even though I have set it apart for my Name to be there. Then Israel will be hated by all of the nations. They will laugh and joke about Israel.

⁸“This temple is now grand and beautiful. But the time is coming when all those who pass by it will be shocked. They will make fun of it. And they will say, ‘Why has the Lord done a thing like this to this land and temple?’

⁹“People will answer, ‘Because they have deserted the Lord their God. He brought their people out of Egypt. But they have been holding on to other gods. They’ve been worshiping them. They’ve been serving them. That’s why the Lord has brought all of this horrible trouble on them.’ ”

Other Things Solomon Did

¹⁰Solomon built the Lord’s temple and the royal palace. It took him 20 years to construct those two buildings.

¹¹King Solomon gave 20 towns in Galilee to Hiram. That’s because Hiram had provided him with all of the cedar and pine logs he wanted. He had also provided him with all of the gold he wanted. Hiram was king of Tyre.

¹²Hiram went from Tyre to see the towns Solomon had given him. But he wasn’t pleased with them. ¹³“My friend,” he asked, “what have you given me? What kind of towns are these?” So he called them the Land of Cabul. And that’s what they are still called to this very day. ¹⁴Hiram had sent four and a half tons of gold to Solomon.

¹⁵King Solomon forced people to work hard for him. Here is a record of what they did. They built the Lord’s temple and Solomon’s palace. They filled in the low places. They rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem. They built up Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer.

¹⁶Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had attacked Gezer and captured it. He had set it on fire. He had killed the Canaanites who lived there. Then he had given Gezer as a wedding gift to his daughter. She was Solomon’s wife.

¹⁷Solomon rebuilt Gezer. He built up Lower Beth Horon ¹⁸and Baalath. He built up Tadmor in the desert. All of those towns were in his land. ¹⁹He built up all of the cities where he could store things. He also built up the towns for his chariots and horses. He built anything he wanted to build in Jerusalem, Lebanon and all of the territory he ruled over.

²⁰There were still many people left in the land who weren’t Israelites. They included Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. ²¹They were children of the people who had lived in the land before the Israelites came. Those people had been set apart to the Lord in a special way to be destroyed. But the Israelites hadn’t been able to kill all of them. Solomon had forced them to work very hard as his slaves. And they still work for Israel to this very day.

²²But Solomon didn’t force any of the men of Israel to work as his slaves. Instead, some were his fighting men. Others were his government officials, his officers and his captains. Others were commanders of his chariots and chariot drivers. ²³Still others were the chief officials who were in charge of his projects. There were 550 officials in charge of those who did the work.

²⁴Pharaoh’s daughter moved from the City of David up to the palace Solomon had built for her. After that, he filled in the low places near the palace.

²⁵Three times a year Solomon sacrificed burnt offerings and friendship offerings. He sacrificed them on the altar he had built to honor the Lord. Along with the offerings, he burned incense to the Lord. So he carried out his duties for the temple.

²⁶King Solomon also built ships at Ezion Geber. It’s near Elath in Edom. It’s on the shore of the Red Sea.

²⁷Hiram sent his men to serve on the ships together with Solomon’s men. Hiram’s sailors knew the sea. ²⁸All of them sailed to Ophir. They brought back 16 tons of gold. They gave it to King Solomon.

The Queen of Sheba Visits Solomon

10The queen of Sheba heard about how famous Solomon was. She also heard about how he served and worshiped the Lord. So she came to test him with hard questions.

²She arrived in Jerusalem with a very large group of attendants. Her camels were carrying spices, huge amounts of gold, and valuable jewels. She came to Solomon and asked him about everything she wanted to know.

³Solomon answered all of her questions. There wasn’t anything that was too hard for the king to explain to her.

⁴So the queen of Sheba saw how very wise Solomon was. She saw the palace he had built. ⁵She saw the food that was on his table. She saw his officials sitting there. She saw the robes of the servants who waited on everyone. She saw his wine tasters. And she saw the burnt offerings Solomon sacrificed at the Lord’s temple. She could hardly believe everything she had seen.

⁶She said to the king, “Back in my own country I heard a report about you. I heard about how much you had accomplished. I also heard about how wise you are. Everything I heard is true. ⁷But I didn’t believe those things. So I came to see for myself. And now I believe it! You are twice as wise and wealthy as people say you are. The report I heard doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story about you.

⁸“How happy your men must be! How happy your officials must be! They always get to serve you and hear the wise things you say.

⁹“May the Lord your God be praised. He must take great delight in you. He placed you on the throne of Israel. The Lord will love Israel for all time to come. That’s why he has made you king. He knows that you will do what is fair and right.”

¹⁰She gave the king four and a half tons of gold. She also gave him huge amounts of spices and valuable jewels. No one would ever bring to King Solomon as many spices as the queen of Sheba gave him.

¹¹Hiram’s ships brought gold from Ophir. From there they also brought huge amounts of almugwood and valuable jewels. ¹²The king used the almugwood to make supports for the Lord’s temple and the royal palace. He also used it to make harps and lyres for those who played the music. That much almugwood has never been brought into Judah or seen there since that day.

¹³King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba everything she wanted and asked for. That was in addition to what he had given her out of his royal riches. Then she left. She returned to her own country with her attendants.

Solomon in All of His Glory

¹⁴Each year Solomon received 25 tons of gold. ¹⁵That didn’t include the money that was brought in by business and trade. It also didn’t include the money from all of the kings of Arabia and the governors of Israel.

¹⁶King Solomon made 200 large shields out of hammered gold. Each one weighed seven and a half pounds. ¹⁷He also made 300 small shields out of hammered gold. Each one weighed almost four pounds. The king put all of the shields in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon.

¹⁸Then he made a large throne. It was decorated with ivory. It was covered with fine gold. ¹⁹The throne had six steps. Its back had a rounded top. The throne had armrests on both sides of the seat. A statue of a lion stood on each side of the throne. ²⁰Twelve lions stood on the six steps. There was one at each end of each step. Nothing like that throne had ever been made for any other kingdom.

²¹All of King Solomon’s cups were made out of gold. All of the articles that were used in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon were made out of pure gold. Nothing was made out of silver. When Solomon was king, silver wasn’t considered to be worth very much.

²²He had many ships that carried goods to be traded. His ships went to sea along with Hiram’s ships. Once every three years the ships returned. They brought gold, silver, ivory, apes and baboons.

²³King Solomon was richer than all of the other kings on earth. He was also wiser than they were. ²⁴People from the whole world wanted to meet Solomon in person. They wanted to see for themselves how wise God had made him. ²⁵Year after year, everyone who came to him brought a gift. They brought articles that were made out of silver and gold. They brought robes, weapons and spices. They also brought horses and mules.

²⁶Solomon had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horses. He kept some of his horses and chariots in the chariot cities. He kept the others with him in Jerusalem.

²⁷The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones. He made cedar wood as common there as sycamore-fig trees in the western hills.

²⁸Solomon got horses from Egypt and from Kue. The royal traders bought them from Kue. ²⁹They weighed out 15 pounds of silver for a chariot from Egypt. And they weighed out almost four pounds of silver for a horse. They also sold horses and chariots to all of the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Arameans.

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